Meeting Pele

By Francis Rico

July/August 2001

Eleven of us greeted the sun at 5:45 a.m. on the rim of the volcano. The twelfth member of our group, don Miguel Ruiz, was with us in spirit, and as totally present as anyone else. It was very cold, with a sharp wind cutting through our clothing and blankets --the only one not freezing was don Miguel, who, being in spirit, was immune from the bitter cold winds at 10,000 feet.

A tour guide chatted loudly with his group of bike riders, brought up to see the sunrise and then ride back down the winding road. His loud banter about football teams, the best hiking shoe preservative spray, the pros and cons of the University of Pittsburg, and so on blasted at our quiet little group. Heather Ash began to ÔomÕ -- at which the tour guide loudly proclaimed, "oh shut up -- thatÕs not Hawaii! All kinds of hippies come up here and take acid, and take their cloths off, and weird things happen like people get married here, and itÕ so stupid that these people, blah blah blah... (later, after the sighting of the sun, he loudly said to his group "OK Ð showÕs over! LetÕs beat it!")

Anyway -- in the middle of this guys mindless chatter, Heather switched from "OM" to an American Indian chant that rippled like a spell over the cliffs, creating calm, quiet, sacred space. The tour guides babble receded into the distance as even his group became quiet, attentive. Then, the first rays of the sun shone at the edge of the huge crater, twenty miles across. the rays, indescribably iridescent, touched each of our hearts directly. We were Here, Now. No longer cold. No longer tired from the Mitote of the previous night -- we were simply present, witnessing the love of creation for each of us.

After a quiet while, we trekked down to the cars, had a few bites of fruit and banana bread, and headed down into the volcano, traveling a path of shifting sands along the rim, descending into the deep quiet of the huge bowl. It was relatively easy going down into it -- not at all like the task of hiking back out later, where each step was a hard won battle over gravity and altitude (there just isnÕt a lot of oxygen at 10,000 feet). Within a couple of hours, we were 3000 feet into the volcano, at the rim of the caldera, the actual cone and deep steep sloped crater that is PeleÕs home.

This was the place that eight years before, don Miguel had descended and had a heart attack. This was the place that four years ago, Heather and a small group accompanying don Miguel, had revisited -- with don Miguel utilizing Heather AshÕs groundedness to recover vital life energy that he had ÔlostÕ in the crater. At that time, Heather Ash had let part of herself blend with the power and spirit of the place, as she became a channel of communication between don Miguel and Pele herself. So there was something for Heather Ash to recover here as well.

We directed the group to spread out around the rim of the crater, each person going to a private space, to create a circle, and to offer past structure and beliefs up to the fire of the place, to cleanse and purify themselves with fire. Heather went completely around to the other side of the rim, directly across from my position. Our goal was to be of service to Pele. We offered our love, our ÔsightÕ and presence and our abilities to Pele, to clean the debris of untold thousands of visitors and to release anything attached to the beauty and purity of this place.

Earlier in our journey, when we had visited one of MauiÕs beautiful beaches, our first act was to clean the beach of garbage, as an act of service and respect for the holiness of the place where ocean and land merged and met -- Heather and I did the same thing, energetically, here, at PeleÕs home. We connected with each other, called in our love, and our intent to restore this sacred space. After a while, as energy crackled and moved, I signaled Heather that the crater looked sparkly and clean. We could now start our work, having offered our respect, gratitude and love to Pele.

Until that moment, for me Pele had been a feeling of presence. ÔPeleÕ was the name I gave to the energy I felt at this crater, a name that meant fire energy. At the moment of completion of the Ôclean-upÕ I looked away from Heather and down into the crater. A huge shadow shape was forming, cloudlike, into an image of a woman, which transformed from shadow into a crackling 3-D image, that became fully present and was looking directly at me. Pele.

Her femininity was unmistakable -- a beautiful Asian featured face with sharp black eyes, a crown of flaming black ÔpearlsÕ - and a simple wrap of pomegranate shaped flames around her hips. Her body and her breasts were tight feather-like flames -- every color of the rainbow was present in her ÔbeingÕ in front of me -- she had an expectant look on her face, a look that inquired, "so?"

Any idea I might have had for what to do or say went right out of my head. Any spiritual eloquence I might have possessed while saying a prayer or creating an invocation completely disappeared. I was left with only the simplest and most basic communication skills. I told her the story of don Miguel. I introduced Heather Ash, and told Pele that she was here to connect directly and whole heartedly with her. I told her that for the past ten or so years, whenever I would start a BBQ, I would always say a prayer to her, asking Pele to grant me a happy fire upon which to BBQ a delicious meal --at this point she nodded "Yes, I know."

I asked Pele to allow us to each do our ceremony at her home, to bring in her presence, with gratitude, and to burn away whatever we had outgrown, whatever was holding us back from living and loving our lives. Then as I ran out of even these simple things to say, I began to feel a sense of deepness, as if I were sinking under water deeper and deeper. I could see my words and thoughts up at the surface, now several hundred feet above my head, floating like seaweed. In the deepness, in the presence of the goddess and surrounded by flame, Pele reached out with her right hand and while I looked into her eyes, her face, she gently touched my chest.

I found myself sitting on a crown of rock completely across the crater, no more that 100 feet from Heather Ash. I began to look at our apprentices with interest.I could send a stream of sparks to one, a kiss of little fire rings to another. A blessing of warm fire sheets to another. The lightest touch of a flame to another, like a feather.

I got up, climbed back up to the rim, and walked over to Heather, who had been facing the Ôbottomless pitÕ caldera, the home of the ancestors bones, directly north of our position on the rim. She asked "what did you see?" I said, "IÕve just been talking with Pele, and she is here now." Heather reacted like I had just described a friend weÕd been waiting for -- "Oh, O.K., then letÕs do our despacho (offering) with the group and then go down into the crater." She spoke very matter of factly, as if we were going to go for a swim or something. If you had been there, you would have realized that the trip down into the center of the crater was an extremely arduous and dangerous climb. Once down, it would be very difficult to get back out. And the energy in the crater was as intense as the energy of a jet airplane taking off -- but in total silence, so deep and absorbent that any stray sound immediately disappeared.

We created a message to the spirits of the craters, the sand, the silver-sword plants, the rocks -- from our hearts to the heart of this creation, we gave thanks and offered all that is sweet and that makes life worthwhile, we offered our joy at being alive to this place. Then Heather blessed each of us with the wrapped up despacho, cleansing each of us -- finally, I cleansed and blessed her, and quickly began heading down the extremely steep slope of the crater, to the bottom. What ever doubts or misgivings the group members might have had evaporated, and everyone followed us down, like children playing, not even worried about having just committed to something enormous, serious and totally unknown. At the bottom, we gathered in a tight circle. The silence was intense.

Heather was vibrating internally like a paint shaking machine -- her heart was pounding. As she said a blessing, I moved a huge rock at the center of our circle, placed the despacho in the resulting hole, and rolled the rock back on top of the despacho. Our message was delivered. Heather began speaking, but who knows what she was saying. I was very concerned for her well-being, as the energy flowing through her was equivalent to an electrocution. It was all I could do to keep a ÔgroundÕ connection going, keeping her body on the planet. In a moment of quiet in the energy ripple, I asked her -- "Have you made peace with this place?" -- she looked at the group circle from another dimension, inviting everyone to ÔhookÕ into her as she descended deeper into the Being of this place, into Pele.

The group hummed with energy, eyes closed, as Heather Ash deepened, becoming elemental, becoming earth itself, becoming the fire at the the center of earth, at the center of each strand of D.N.A. Lines of force sprang out from her, towards Teotuhuacan, to Peru, high in the sacred valley, to Tibet, in the Himalayas, to Egypt -- I could suddenly see that she wasnÕt connecting to ÔplacesÕ to mountains, to things -- she was connecting to her SISTERS! Connecting to the sisters, the deeply feminine presences that grace earth like power places, like starry constellations. The connection was not between places, but between parts of herself -- ÔherÕ no longer being Heather Ash, but Heather Ash being the conduit and channel of creation recognizing and reconnecting itself -- mending, healing, re-uniting. The joy of this moment cannot be described. Then with a blast of heat, I knew it was time to go.

I brought the group to their feet and directed them back up the slope to the craterÕs rim. GO, GO! NOW! I too went part way up the slope, leaving Heather for a moment to dance alone in the circle -- her body offering itÕs grace and gratitude for having returned to form -- although I could see right through her -- she was there, and not there. Then, she sprang towards the slope, and began the climb up to join the group. I looked at her. Something had been completed at the deepest level I have ever seen in a human. She was a person. She was pure spirit. She was complete. She was a ÔglobalÕ being, with sisters named Pele, Kali, Mura, Ashtar, Isis and other names known to her alone.

This is what each of us is capable of. Where one of us goes, we all can follow. This has been don MiguelÕs message to us - "If I can do it, you can do it." We are one being, after all. But to see it happen before your eyes can only be described as witnessing Big Magic. Heather Ash began to talk, walk, play and act like herself, pretty much. The transformation was not about her becoming someone else, or something else, but about her becoming who she really IS, and always has been.

We hiked out of the crater, and drove down the hill, to the beach, to the soft winds, the gentle rains that would come and go, to the warm sun of Maui. It was a very good place to be.